Alan cleared his throat and held his phone light under his chin, "space, the final frontier. In space, no one can hear you scream, but you hear others'…"
"Good grief," Gordon sighed, then yelped as John's foot connected with his shin.
"And off we go."
The Landpod's tyres crunched over the gravel on the surface of Mars and Alan grinned, how many people could say they frequently visited another planet as he did? He was on a solo mission checking on Lee Taylor and the Martian colony who had made a new life there a year ago, and given his eldest brother wasn't with him he had decided to go off exploring in the safety of the pod. He quickly found himself in the middle of the desert and smiled at the desolate surroundings before he turned on the scanners hoping to find something. To that day no one had reported any signs of life, but he knew that had to be a lie.
An hour went by and he still hadn't seen anything, he sighed unhappily thinking about turning back, when out of nowhere, he heard soft growling on his com channel and his onboard computer screen went black.
"Okay, this isn't funny." He tapped the screen but it remained off, he tried the radio and rolled his eyes at the lack of connection, "and my coms are down. Great." He looked out into the dust and spotted a flash of red, "what the heck was that?" He rolled the pod slowly forwards to where he had seen the light and switched the headlights on, "come on, show yourself."
Suddenly an eerie screech blasted through the pod's speakers causing Alan to clamp his hands over his ears and the pod was pushed back by an unseen force, once the pod was quiet again he slammed his foot down on the accelerator spinning around as a faint red light illuminated the cockpit. Not wanting to get caught, he pushed the pod faster watching the dial hit 100mph. Up ahead he spotted cliffs he could hide beneath and skidded to a halt. Alan breathed deeply and tried again to turn the screen on, but nothing happened. Hitting the dashboard angrily, he resorted to trying his wrist controller to attempt to get a signal on his surroundings.
Rocks fell beside the pod and he watched as small pebbles rolled down the cliff before bouncing off the roof above him, he shivered slightly and peered up at the looming cliffs, he was half expecting to see an alien but the sight he saw scared him even more. Rows of red eyes were staring down at the pod, he didn't know if they could see him but they bobbed up and down as if watching from floating figures he couldn't see. Instead of a scream like he had heard before, a low hiss echoed through his communication channel instead and he looked up again now that the dust had cleared.
Now it was his turn to scream, the red eyes were single and embedded within rock formations which began to move down the cliff slope towards him, he frantically started the engine of the pod again and the wheels skidded on the ground.
"Come on!" Alan grunted. "Please!" There was a loud thud behind him and he looked back over his shoulder only to see that one of the rocks had reached the bottom of the cliff, "crap. Come on!" The engine finally started and he hit the pedal again jolting the pod violently forwards. As he left the red eyes behind him, a fireball soared past him hitting the cliff ahead and he swerved to avoid a large boulder rolling towards him, he didn't look back again until he reached the safety of the colony where Lee Taylor was waiting.
"Alan, your brother has been calling me for you. Where have you been?"
"You're not alone on this planet, I was being chased by rocks!" Alan panted.
Lee laughed. "Don't be silly, Albert, I mean, Alan. We've never seen anything here. You're imagining things, boy."
"No, I'm not! Tracy's honour. I heard something scream over my coms and then hissing, and before I knew it these rocks were following me!"
"Nothing out there can breathe, Alan. So no one can scream…"
Alan grinned maliciously under the torchlight, "to this day, I still don't know what I saw, and the colony hasn't found anything."
"You said you didn't face jeopardy. That sounded like you faced danger to me," Virgil rolled his eyes as he lounged across the couch.
"You saw evidence of real alien life?" Kayo asked.
"Yeah, it was awesome. Life on Mars. I really wish I had taken a photo at the time, but I was terrified."
"I'd be terrified too. You just said they had firepower. Are you definitely certain that those rocks fired at you?" Scott frowned, moving off the couch to re-light a candle that had gone out.
"Yes, I am. What would I have to gain by making something up?" He turned off his torch plunging him into the dim house lights and glow of the fire beside him.
"He does have a point," Kayo shrugged. "Who's next?"
Gordon looked across at Virgil, "Virg?"
"What?"
"You're the master of spooky stories."
"That's because I usually make them up."
"So you don't have a real one this year either?"
"Actually, I do, and you guys were there at the time."
Kayo raised an eyebrow, "that narrows things down."
Virgil frowned and swung his legs around to the floor to sit facing the room, his cloak fluttered beside his feet, "do you remember the ghost city?"